


Choose Your Own Theft

by aces



Category: Leverage
Genre: Crack, Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A study in the power of objects. No, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choose Your Own Theft

Parker (alias; no first name necessary) has always been a remarkably gifted thief. Even as a small child, she had skill.

For example, when still quite small, she stole MacGyver's duct tape.

And his Swiss army knife.

MacGyver (not an alias; first name embarrassing), a usually easygoing man, would probably have shrugged, demanded the knife back and bought new duct tape, had she not stolen them _exactly_ when he needed them to create a diversion so that he could escape a particularly nasty group of drug smugglers in Chicago.

Parker, a precocious child in some respects, was so impressed by what he managed to pull off just with the gum, cigarette lighter, utility knife, and bottle of mineral water, that she slipped the knife back into his pocket when he wasn't looking.

*

The school had a secure room in the library. It was practically _begging_ for Parker to practice her lockpicking and stealth skills, since that weird group of kids were always barging into the library at all hours and the little cage wasn't exactly in an out-of-the-way corner of the library.

There were weird books in the locked area. Of course, Parker supposed, but why the hell any high school library would have so many books in Latin and Greek and what couldn't even be human languages Parker couldn't fathom. Not that she cared all that much. She picked what looked like the prettiest book of the lot. She left the weaponry. She found that stuff a little _too_ weird.

A week later, as the Scooby gang frantically searched through every book they could find looking for information on an Alkesh demon, Rupert Giles tore through the books he kept in the cage and cursed with a fluid inventiveness that shocked Willow and deeply impressed Xander.

*

Parker bumped into the tall, thin man with really weird hair and slipped whatever was in his pocket into her own, mostly out of habit. His pockets were surprisingly full, so she just grabbed whatever came to hand first. If she was actually _working_ at it, she would have been more picky.

"This?" the Doctor said ten minutes later after he and Martha had been thrown into a locked basement after being discovered by the impossible-to-say-with-only-one-throat alien race who were attempting to use the Sears Tower as a very large antenna to call the rest of their fleet to come invade the planet. "This will be _easy_ to get out of, Martha! All I need is my sonic scr—what?" He pulled his hand out of his pocket, empty. "_Where is it_?"

*

On some of these for-hire jobs, Parker didn't think too hard about what she was stealing. It wasn't like a diamond, or some other pretty gem, or even beautiful money itself; not when it was plans, or some stupid painting, or a piece of sculpture some other person wanted. So she just got on with the job and didn't think about it much.

Even when she was breaking into an ultra-secret scientific think tank full of all kinds of interesting prototypes and technological bits'n'pieces. Parker's interest in technology typically only went so far as to figuring out how she could thwart it.

Their security was pretty impressive, actually; she almost wished she had some kind of computer hacking skill, or knew somebody who did. But she just shrugged and figured out a way to bypass those particular locks and controls.

Whatever she was stealing was small and lightweight and silver. There were a lot of small, lightweight, silver things lying around this lab, but she had a picture. She was just putting it into her backpack when she heard something else that sounded small and lightweight and somehow silver shatter behind her.

"I really wouldn't take that if I were you," a guy said, but Parker didn't bother turning around.

"Why not?" she asked. "It's not yours, is it?"

"Well, no, but it's not yours either," the guy said.

"Yeah, I know; I'm not taking it for me, I'm taking it for somebody else."

There was a pause. Parker swung around to look over her would-be—rival? He was tall and thin and had really weird hair. Parker didn't really note much about what people looked like, unless she thought they were hot. She didn't find too many people hot.

"That's better how?" he asked, frowning.

"I get paid for it," she said. "A _lot_ of money." She looked him over. "I didn't see or hear you anywhere; how did you do that?"

He half-smiled. "I have my ways of moving around covertly too." He nodded to her backpack. "I can't let you take that."

"How are you going to stop me?"

"Well," he said doubtfully, "if you won't come quietly, I guess I could knock you out."

She blinked. "You'd seriously hit a girl?"

"I don't _like_ to," he sounded defensive. "I don't make a _habit_ of it. Usually _I'm_ the one getting the crap kicked out of me. I could just let my partner shoot you. Would you prefer that?"

"No," Parker had to admit. "How did you not set off any of the lasers or cameras?" She squinted at him. "Are you a thief too?" He had a deer-in-the-headlights look; Parker could recognize those because she'd seen them a lot. "You are, aren't you!" she crowed. "Are you here to steal it too? I'm sorry, but I got here first."

"No, I'm not here to steal it! I told you, I'm here to make sure _nobody_ steals it. And yes," he added uncomfortably, "I used to be a thief. I'm strictly legit now. What's your name?" he added suddenly.

"Parker," she said, daring him.

"Oh no," he said. "No way. I've heard about you. The Fredonia Bank job. That was you."

She grinned. "What's yours?"

"Uh…" He looked sheepish. "Darien Fawkes."

"Fawkes." She thought for a moment. "Oh yeah, I heard about you. You were the one who molested that old g—"

"That was all a lie," he cut her off, "I was _giving him CPR_."

"You were a pretty crappy thief," Parker said critically. "It's a good thing you've gone legit."

"Look, would you just give me the damned backpack?" Darien held out his hand. "The future of the whole country is at stake or something, so you really don't want to steal that little—thingy."

"If you don't even know what it is, how could you know the future of the country is at stake?" she asked reasonably.

"I just know, okay? Please?"

Parker gave it back, but only so she could steal it again later in peace.

*

One moment, Jack's pie was sitting on the table where it should have been. The next, it wasn't.

He'd only looked away a moment, to see what was taking Teal'c so long in grabbing his dinner. He stared at the empty table in bemusement. "What the hell?"

Daniel wasn't around to steal his pie. Carter wasn't around. Teal'c was still in line, apparently debating the finer points of broccoli or mixed vegetables. The SFs at the next table over wouldn't _dare_ touch his pie. What the hell?

Somebody was leaving the cafeteria. Jack followed.

She was small, wore black, and was starting up one of the emergency ladder shafts that definitely should not have been unsecured. "You stole my pie!" Jack accused her, though in the back of his mind he was thinking, _There are bigger issues here, O'Neill_. He had a feeling Hammond would not have agreed with his priorities.

It'd looked like really good pie.

Her mouth twisted a little, wryly. "It looked like really good pie." She climbed out of sight. Jack headed for the ladder. Her head popped out from above, and Jack reeled back for a moment in surprise. She stared at him, fiercely. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Before Jack could come up with a suitable answer, she disappeared again. He immediately called Daniel and Carter to take inventory. Just in case she'd decided to steal more than only his pie.

*

"What's wrong with McGee?" Tony sidled up to Ziva's desk and would have reached for her stapler if she hadn't swiped at his hand without even looking where to aim. Tony drew his hand back and kissed his own knuckle.

Ziva looked over at the probie, who sat dejectedly tapping at his computer keyboard with a single finger, his other hand holding up his chin.

"Somebody stole his typewriter," she said.

*

Parker ate cereal at a diner in Seattle. She was going to meet a potential client that afternoon and had time to kill, so she listened into the group sitting at the booth behind her. They talked about death a lot. Parker found it a little weird.

Parker got up to leave just as one of them did the same, a girl around her age, dressed in business casual. She held something in her fingers; Parker took it, almost entirely by accident. Almost.

A yellow post-it note.

After leaving the diner, and making sure the girl had walked the other way, she looked at it. A name—last name, first initial—an address, a time. Parker shrugged and dropped the note into a nearby trash can.

George had read her note before she left Der Waffel Haus, and she'd even remembered what she'd read, but she was still cursing as she ran that afternoon to her death date.

*

Parker, who particularly dislikes horses for several good reasons, is not overly fond of animals in general. She especially dislikes animals that can kill her with a single claw. She almost refused to take on this job, in fact, but the money was too good and the "impossible to break into" phrase had been thrown in, making the job almost irresistible.

Impossible to break into, hah. These people wouldn't know the phrase "secret base" if it walked up and slapped them over the head with a fish. She was disappointed. She even thought about demanding more pay to appease her disappointment, and then thought her employers might not go for that so much. Probably.

So Parker did her job and delivered the goods, which was actually a hell of a lot harder than the breaking-into-the-secret-base-in-the-middle-of-Cardiff had been. "Next time," she told herself as she washed the blood off her hands, "more sedatives."

A few hours later, Ianto Jones hurtled into Jack Harkness' office, shouting.

*

Two men slipped fairly quietly into the den where Parker was already at work; _fairly_ quietly, but Parker could totally have done it better. And had already, in fact. Then again, they were both a lot taller than her. She didn't know that anybody that big could be truly _quiet_.

"What are you doing?" one of them hissed when he saw her.

"What are _you_ doing?" she retorted, not looking away from her task.

"I asked first!"

"So? I asked second."

"Why are you taking that?" the really-freakishly-tall guy interrupted, throwing the other guy a look in the meantime. They were both carrying sawn-off shotguns.

"You know, most thieves don't carry sawn-off shotguns," Parker said as she wrapped up the small statuette. "They're a little too obvious. We prefer—well, I guess I wouldn't say subtlety." She looked up at last from her work. "Who _are_ you guys?"

"Why should we tell you that? You're a thief!"

"He's Dean," said the really-freakishly-tall one, rolling his eyes. "I'm Sam. And you are?"

"Stealing this, so if you wouldn't mind going away, I'd really appreciate it, thanks."

"Listen," Sam-the-really-freakishly-tall said earnestly, "you don't want to take that. It's not safe."

Parker huffed out a breath. "Not safe? What, because I might get caught? I've been doing this sort of thing for _years_—"

"No because that statue could come to life and feed on your soul," Dean snapped, and Sam hushed him, looking up the ceiling, above which was the second floor bedrooms where the household presumably slept.

"Oh please," Parker said, "as if statues _actually_ come to life and ea—"

It was at that precise moment there was a tiny flash of light in her hands, and then something _happened_, and Parker didn't know a whole lot until about ten minutes later when the entire house was lit up, people were yelling and calling the police, and Dean and Sam-the-freakishly-tall were hauling her out of there.

"Wha-huh?" she said at last. "Wait. Did that really just happen? Did I _really_ just have my brain sucked by a little crouching Buddha?"

"That wasn't a Buddha," Sam-the-freakishly-tall sounded like he'd had this particular conversation lots of times before, even as Dean said, "I said it looked like a Buddha, didn't I? _Didn't_ I?" and Parker took the opportunity to bolt before they could stop her.

*

People had often asked Parker to steal really weird things for them, and usually at ridiculously exorbitant prices. But then, Parker liked money, and if they were going to hire the best, she might as well charge them for it.

Stealing a gun, though? Not what Parker usually did. Apparently this was a really special gun. Owned by a really special woman. Parker had a feeling the guy had some _issues_ to work through concerning the woman.

Not that Parker couldn't steal this piece fast enough. This town was weird. Nothing worked right, it was all too technological, and she had a feeling Hardison would be in _love_ with the place. One dude had a mechanical dog. There was actually a flying car, or maybe more than one. Stuff like that. She was in and out as fast as she could make it. Besides, Nate kept demanding to know where the hell she was.

"Oh great," Sheriff Carter said the next morning when he walked into his office and surveyed the damage. "Lupo's gonna _love_ this."

*

It smelled like pork buns. Parker wrinkled her nose. This guy would have to live right over a gaudy Chinese restaurant that never seemed to turn its lights off. Not that it really mattered.

Stealing the article in question was actually much harder. That detective was a light sleeper. And slept in his chair a lot. It took all Parker's skill to quietly and breathlessly get past him into the desk and take the yarn.

Apparently it was some kind of special yarn, with unusual tensile strength. Or something. Parker hadn't really been paying that much attention to why her employer wanted it stolen.

Unfortunately, the PI woke up just as Parker was slipping out the window. "What the hell?" He stared at her, looked down at what she held in her hands. "Oh _hell_ no! You come back here, woman!"

"Sorry," Parker said and hauled herself up the side of the building. She considered using the yarn to haul herself down, to see if it really was that strong, but then decided against it.

*

Oh yes, Parker is an excellent thief. She could even be stealing your computer right now.

Yes, that one that you're sitting at. You might want to turn a—


End file.
